


Struggling for Sense

by sagiow



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV, Post-Finale, Post-Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 12:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14112201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/pseuds/sagiow
Summary: He refused to believe it.





	Struggling for Sense

They stood together on the dock, her soft sobs muffled against his chest the only sound breaking the silence. He barely registered the cold breeze that whipped at his face, the icy drizzle that he could not remember ever starting. Had it been raining all along? Had it ever stopped?

Did it matter? Did any of it?

To lose one child, and gain another, all in the span of mere minutes. What else could possibly matter, in the light of such cruel _quid pro quo_?

He felt her hold on him tighten, a sigh wreck her body against his, and it brought him back to their first case. Her sigh of relief as she threw herself against him, at his confirmation that the bumps on her back were nothing to worry about, just bug bites, that she’d be perfectly fine.

What a fucking lie.

Twenty-five years later, and she was still not fine. Far from it. Still she feared, and lost, and cried in his arms.

When would it stop?

Would it ever?

The injustice of it snapped him back to alertness. It made no sense, and he would not have it.

“I refuse to believe that.”

She stiffened, then pulled away slowly to look at him, a fresh hurt in her anguished face. “So did I, and this is why I didn’t tell you sooner. But it’s true, Mulder, I’ve triple-checked, although I can’t begin to explain it.”

He softened then. “No, not the…” Just as she hadn’t been able to word it, neither could he; he just shook his head and took her hand. “’l’ll believe that, with all my heart, when it’ll have time to sink in. I mean what you said about William.”

She sighed again, looking away. “Skinner told me everything on the way here, that Spender-“

“I don’t care what that lying son of a bitch said he did, other than it caused you terrible pain, and just for that I’d gladly kill him again,” he replied angrily. “But whatever horrible thing it was, I refuse to believe it would change your mind about who William was to you. You’ve been in _his_ mind, you’ve seen through his eyes; you cared for him and loved him more than anything for the first year of his life, and prayed for him every day since. You can’t tell me now that you were never a mother to him!”

He saw her struggle for an explanation, and fall apart once more. “I didn’t… I don’t… It’s just too much, Mulder. I was just trying to make sense of it all. I couldn’t bear for us to lose him twice: first as our son, and finally to death. I thought… if he wasn’t ours, if he was truly, coldly created by that man… that it’d be easier to finally let him go, as he asked me to do. But I was wrong…so wrong…” she cried, hanging her head, whatever control she still held over her emotions bursting at the seams.

Images of the baby she had lost flooded her mind; his fair, smiling face, his tight grasp around her finger; his cry when he was afraid, his crystalline laugh when he was not. The warm weight of his sleeping body in her arms, fully abandoned and trusting in her love to keep him safe.

That face, darker, older, of a child by a pool, a boy in a baseball uniform, a young man now, nearly unrecognizable on the grainy security camera feed. “You seem like a nice person,” he had said to her, in the guise of an Asian man. And then with Mulder’s face, his hand grabbing her shoulder insistently. “He knows you love him. Let him go.”

She shut her eyes against the images, trying to still her racing heart, to swallow the lump of despair that threatened to choke her. When she opened her eyes again, her face was one of utter pain. “To be so close, after all these years…” she continued. “I never got to look at him, and talk to him. Only in the morgue, when I thought he was dead, and I wasn’t even sure it was _him_ , that Jackson was really William. And then, twice he came within arm’s reach, and twice he hid away from me, purposely… And now he’s gone, and I’ll never have another chance to hold him in my arms, and protect him like I should have when he was a baby. My baby...”

A sob escaped her, but caught in her throat: the weight of her words struck her, and she looked up at him in apologetic alarm. “Mulder, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, I shouldn’t… you…”

He shook his head, a sad smile crossing his lips, and he took her gently by the shoulders. “No, Scully, don’t; I refuse to believe that as well. Because... for longer than we ever were FBI agents, or partners, in work or life, _we were his parents_. We spent seventeen years wondering, worrying about him, hoping he got a better life than we could have given him, that we’d be reunited someday, somehow. And today, I got our wish: we spoke, we hugged, father and son. That smoking bastard stole that from you, but he can’t take that away from me.”

She stared at him with baited breath and more questions that could ever be worded. He met her gaze earnestly, and spoke in barely a murmur. “When you placed him in my arms, that first time, and couldn’t explain how he came to be… I told you what I believed in. The truth we both knew. And since that moment, it’s the only truth I have ever held on to.”

Fresh tears appeared in her eyes, and he reached up to wipe them away. “The truth is that I love you, Scully, and William was made out of that love. Just that simple, and nothing will ever change that. Even after we lost him, and the X-Files, and eventually each other, he was always the living proof of what we had been. Of what we could be. And I never believed in anything more than our love for him, and my love for you... my touchstone. Always.”

She gazed back at him, taking hold of his hand against her cheek, and bringing it lower to press to her heart. “And you are mine, more so now than ever.”

A glimmer of hope crossed his face. “Scully, give us another chance; I won’t screw it up this time,” he pleaded earnestly. “No more chasing aliens, monsters, evil men and their conspiracies… we’ve lost too much to them already. I’m done saving the world, when I couldn’t even save our boy. I won’t make that mistake again,” he added, with the lightest of touches to her stomach.

She could only nod, the relief of the long desired pledge drawing the hint of a smile. “That’s all I ever hoped for.”

“Then let’s go home.” He pulled her in, and leaned down. Their lips met, softly, the gentlest kiss confirming the promises exchanged, of so much more to come, when the pain would not be as cruel, the grief not so acute. At last, they fell once more in each other’s arms, gazing at the dark bay, at the tiniest ripples from the winter breeze on the otherwise still water.

One last time, she reached out to her son, trying to find that recent, precious spark, to re-establish that ephemeral connection she had so long sought. _Good-bye, William. Be free, be safe, be at peace._

Suddenly, there was a flash, a new image erupting in her mind. A burst of light, a blast of cold. Air rushing through burning lungs. Water dripping into eyes. The thrill of the fight won; of being alive, and unbound, and loved. A smile.

_You too, Mom._

 “Scully? Scully, are you okay?”

His panicked voice recalled her back to reality. She emerged from the mist to find him holding her close, examining her face in alarm. “Are you alright?” he repeated, brows knitted in concern. “You just collapsed. What happened?”

She regained her footing on the pavement, stood up on shaky legs, and turned to face the harbor. Frantically, her eyes searched the water, trying to distinguish the forms in the darkness: there! on a faraway bank, moving slightly, a shape. Could it be? Could it really be?

Slowly, she lifted her arm, fingers and prayers extending like a beacon. The shape stood still, but after an instant, unmistakably, deliberately, returned the gesture. For a moment, they stood, mirror images across the water, until she blinked, and it vanished from her sight.

The breath left her. Her arm dropped, and reached up behind her, her hand immediately finding his, and clasping it. Holding on for dear life. For a life that may no longer be lost. “Did you see that?” she gasped.

She pulled him close, and he embraced her from behind, his arms enfolding her, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder, and she felt him shake his head, sadly. She sighed, but did not let it crush her hope: for once, she would just have to be the believer.

Tightening her hold on him, their joined hands pressed against the slight swell of her belly, she turned to kiss his cheek, lean her forehead against his temple, and whisper in his ear: “Never give up on a miracle.”

**Author's Note:**

> The finale’s finale pissed me off, so I tried to fix it, without retconning anything. It’s probably the twentieth similar story in the fandom, I honestly haven’t looked; this is a purely cathartic exercise, and surely too fluffy despite the angst, with some iconic line recalls to better mytharc eps, but that’s what happens when CC screws us over this bad. 
> 
> I meant to give some #JusticeForMonica as well, because WTF was that all about? I wish she’d done like Doggett and stayed away from this mess. Maybe I’ll write another drabble to exorcize that bit, too.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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